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The cherry stem sits on a wet napkin. It’s knotted almost perfectly, leaning slightly to the side as she pokes it with a toothpick.
“That,” she says frankly, “is fucking disgusting.”
“It’s a neat party trick.”
“You’re enjoying this way too much.”
“I am,” he agrees, popping a second cherry into his mouth. “When I asked Tsunade for the favor, I didn’t think she’d take me seriously.” Kakashi shrugs. He struggles to hide his amusement. “But she did,” he says, “and here you are.”
“Here I am,” Sakura echoes.
He does not know what to do with older Sakura, freshly divorced Sakura, and a Sakura who literally outright refuses to spare him a second glance. It’s nearly impossible to reconcile any of it, honestly, because this Sakura has legs and he is a legs kind of man, this Sakura is insanely smart, something he’s always known, but to have it in play in a conversation is stupidly hot. Kakashi has always had a thing for verbal play.
“How’s the kid?”
Her mouth twitches. “So good.” Her entire face softens. “I got really lucky.”
If he were a better man, he’d ask things like, “does Sasuke visit?” or “how is co-parenting going?” but he is neither a good man nor is he interested. In Sasuke, of course. But mostly, he forces himself to remember why they’re here.
Kakashi is not a good man.
It’s still a simple recon mission. He actually didn’t need anyone with him. Naruto wanted him to take one of the new genins to test them. It wasn’t a bar for any of that. He very well could have picked up one of the women in here. But Sakura, Sakura was different, is different and in a moment of weakness, he pushed Tsunade to convince Sakura to come with him. For old times’ sake, he had said.
“I don’t see the guy.”
“Sure you do.” Sakura reaches across the bar, picking a cherry from the open jar. She smiles at the bartender. “You made him the moment you came in.” Her head tilts. She knows they are both looking at the same man. The cherry dangles from the tip of her fingers, swaying as she weighs her options.
“Are you going to try?”
“Should I?”
“I’ll buy the next round.”
“This is on Tsunade’s dime.” His pupils dilate the moment the cherry rolls between her lips. His body shifts together, closer, his legs opening on either side of her and her stool. For all intents and purposes, they should look like two people ready to leave the bar together.
He has spent the better part of ten minutes – okay five minutes – truly fascinated by her legs. They’re impossibly long. He wonders what she’d do if he reached for her, if he dragged his fingers along her thigh.
“Are you trying it?” He doesn’t recognize the sound of his voice. He watches her swallow too. “Sakura, seriously?”
She holds up a finger. He watches, wide-eyed, as her tongue peeks out, the cherry stem sitting against it.
“You little brat.”
She smirks. “Mine isn’t soggy,” she counters.
Behind her, his mark stands abruptly. He’s a mess. Drunk and flushed. There is sweat written into his brow. The stain on his shirt bothers Kakashi more than it should. Two girls under each of his arm. He’s fucked, he thinks. This is how the night is apparently going to go.
Without thinking he grabs her hand, dragging her behind him. They’ll follow, of course. Sakura is sensible, maybe to a fault. He understands why Tsunade lent her favorite pupil out. Sakura has never been motivated by anger, like Sasuke, or grief, like Naruto. Sakura is almost always motivated by perspective and that, if anything, has worked in her favor more times than none.
“We need a word.”
Her amusement is almost too much for him. She raises an eyebrow. “Cherry,” she says dryly.
“Cherry,” he agrees, and pushes her into the wall. The mark and his girls have barely made it to what looks to be some sort of private room.
“Come on, daddy,” one of the girls giggles, “shouldn’t we show everyone just how good we are for you?”
“I think I may want to bleach my brain,” Sakura murmurs, her mouth grazing his jaw. His hands jerk forward, sliding underneath her dress. They grasp her thighs, trembling. “Or is that your thing, Kakashi? You do like those smutty books.”
“Why?” His breath catches. “Wanna call me daddy?”
She laughs huskily. “Nah.” Her mouth is impossible. It moves from his jaw to the underside, this spot at his throat that snap his vision in half. “I don’t kink shame,” she says, and he can’t tell if she’s teasing, or serious, and that, right there, is a huge problem. “I’m a simple girl,” she tells him, mean it too. Her breathing changes, just slightly, in pitch and she’s a little breathless. “I want to call you by your name when I’m on top of you,” she says, “and when you’re inside of me, I want to talk about how you’re going to fill me all up.” She nips at his jaw a little. “I do just fine with sweetheart.”
There are a million reasons why she is the worst idea. And he forgets them. All of them.
“I’m going to go kill him.”
Sakura laughs again. “You can’t kill the mark on a recon assignment.”
“What if he slips into your knives,” he murmurs, his thumb slides over the strap that he finds. His nails rake over skin and metal and he might just explode into his pants, he decides. If he were seeing a therapist, this would be the time to point out how easy it is to set him off, how he’s fucked up and wants this woman so badly that he’s willing to overlook things like principle, even though he’s never had much.
“An unfortunate accident,” she says. “But no.”
Kakashi hates that this is the prettiest he’s ever seen her, in the back, bathroom hallway of a dingy, sweaty bar that she has no business being in. He’d fuck her here, if she let him, if he were younger, dumber, and selfish.
But she’s right, unfortunately. And he’s still here to do a job.
There is a scream. “Cherry,” Kakashi says.
-
He lasts a week.
A whole week, mind you. It doesn’t matter that every moment he spent in his shower, sore from all the work he picked up, that he would lean against the wall, fist his cock, and think about how soft and wet her mouth would feel around his dick. He didn’t sleep much either. The dreams, if anything, were worse; Sakura with her hand threaded through his hair, dipping her mouth just slightly over his as she rode him into climax, then spent, staying in his lap because she liked how full he made her feel.
It's not fair that he can’t read his books the same way, look at another woman on his off time, or just find anyway to satisfy his brain.
So he seeks her out. Because he’s a fucking moron. Or he just likes punishing himself.
Sarada is staying with her grandparents. The nurses at the front are happy to offer information. Sakura is working a double. The hospital is short staffed. Dr. Haruno is brilliant to work for. Are you her boyfriend? She is taking a recovery nap. They all know who he is anyway.
He finds the sleep lounge.
She’s awake, of course, sitting on the edge of the bed with her face pressed into her hands. Her hair is spilling out a messy bun.
“A recovery nap?”
Sakura does not look up. “Are you hurt?”
“I’m off.” He moves to sit next to her. Kicks the door shut behind him. “Your turn to work the graveyard shift, sweetheart?”
“My turn to work the graveyard shift,” she says dryly, looking up. She laughs a little and he can’t help but really like the sound. The sweetheart isn’t lost.
“You should be sleeping,” he says, sitting on the bed next to her. He leans back on his hands, turning his head to watch her. “At least, according to the nurses out there.”
She snorts. “They need to mind their business.” She rolls her neck. There’s a slight crack. “My chakra needs to recover,” she says quietly. “I used a lot in surgery.”
“Raise someone from the dead again?”
Her mouth curls. “Something like that.”
“Can I –” He’s hesitant, but curious. Healing techniques are foreign to him. His basics are passable. There are plenty of rumors about Sakura and her abilities though. “How can I help?” His shoulders settle. He feels a little awkward. “You helped me,” he says.
“Tsunade helped you,” she replies.
“You were there,” he points out.
Sakura laughs a little.
“Sleep helps,” she says. Her gaze meets his. “Sex helps too.”
“You’re lying.” She’s not. He knows she’s not. But his fingers are already pushing some of her hair back, tucking a few strands behind her ear.
“I could be.” He will never admit to enjoying that she plays along. She flashes a slow, lazy smile. When his fingers hover near her jaw, she turns her head and nips at them, her teeth scraping lightly over her skin. “Want to find out?”
Kakashi is not an idiot. He rarely freezes in these moments. But she’s really fucking pretty, he thinks.
“We’ll even use cherry,” she teases him.
Kakashi kisses her. It wasn’t a hard sell.
He devours her mouth, digging his fingers into her hair, unraveling whatever is left of her bun because her hair should be down, should be loose, should be everywhere. She is soft, impossibly soft, softer than she should be under his hands and it’s going to haunt him, he decides, even more.
“Talk to me,” he demands. He can barely recognize the sound of his own voice. “I want to hear you,” he says, stealing another kiss. She whimpers a little and he pulls lightly at her hair, nipping at her lip. “I need to.”
Sakura laughs breathlessly, sliding her hands underneath his shirt. Her palms are cool to touch over his hips, then his belly. She peels his shirt over his head.
“What do you want to know,” she murmurs, throwing the shirt to the floor. She stands briefly and he takes advantage, pushing her pants off of her hips. When she’s in his lap, she digs her fingers into his hair, pulling his head back and biting at his lips.
“Everything,” he growls. “Tell me everything,” he demands too. “This week has been fucking hell, Sakura. Because you are under my fucking skin and you shouldn’t be.”
He’s trying to own it, but his body is reactive. She is straddling his lap and his dick is ready for release. He can’t wrap his head around the fact that her panties are lace, that they’re black not pink, that it is very possible that she wears things like this underneath her clothes all the time. Sakura is a woman that likes very nice things.
“I don’t know,” she singsongs.
“You’re a brat.”
“You like it.” God, he does. He does. He does. He frees himself from the constraint of his pants, moaning when she presses her hips into his. “You like it,” she brushes her mouth against his ear, “because you like the game.” Her hand slips between them and her fingers wrap slowly around his length, sliding lazily over the skin. A groan lodges itself into his throat when her thumb presses against the tip of his cock. He’s going to die, he decides, if he’s not inside of her.
But he catches her mouth, instead of confessing, grabbing her hips and she slowly guides herself over him. He’s not inside of her just yet and his brain short circuits the moment her clit rubs lightly against his dick. She’s wet, she’s wet for him, and that does something to a man.
Right now, he’s just a man.
“Let me fuck you,” he pleads, almost breathlessly, and she laughs, grazing his mouth with hers. He’s distinctly aware of her chakra pushing against his, against his body, and he lets her in without thinking. The head of his cock is right there, just right there, and he feels her sink onto him, literally inch by inch, and lets out this deep, gasping noise.
“You’ve asked so nicely.” Her eyes are green, but he doesn’t remember them being that green, that bright, like the forests he’d go and find himself missing, like the itch when he stayed too still. She’s alive, she’s alive, she’s alive and he could wax poetic about it, find pages in books that he’s read and compare her to each of them, paint a picture –
“You’re so fucking pretty like this,” he murmurs anyway. His ears are ringing. She isn’t moving. But he’s so full of her – of the way her skin flushes, the fact that he can dip his head and wrap his lips around her nipples, also pretty and pink. He’s starved. “I need a minute,” he breathes, and meets her gaze finally, watching as she starts to make these little sounds, just after her hips jut forward, just a little, as if she were testing the waters.
He sees why men start wars for women. Kakashi, if anything, has been a romantic at heart. And this is one of those moments where he remembers, remembers that this woman in his lap, with his dick inside of her, she could be everything and he would let her, just to lose himself to this kind of moment again and again.
Her fingers slide into his hair, pulling lightly at the back of his neck. Her mouth grazes his. Then again. And she gives him this slight, soft whimper because he knows that she can feel him start to swell inside of her.
“Times’ up,” she manages, and finally, Kakashi begins to move.
-
Tsunade stares at him, her eyes narrowing.
“No,” she says flatly. “Sakura cannot come out of retirement for you. I don’t care if you think she’s the only person on earth that can walk into your hyper-specific bar with hyper-specific patrons. Her duties are to the hospital.”
Behind him, Sakura laughs. He sends her a look and she smirks. I told you so, she mouths too. Would it be inappropriate to kidnap her for this mission? Probably.
“She’s needed here.” Tsunade narrows her eyes. “Don’t think about going to Naruto either.”
“She’s not retired.” His head tilts. “You’re retired.”
“You could just take her on a date, you moron.” She goes a step forward, muttering something about how she’s still giving too much to the community and something more about a vacation. But he can see the way the dark circles under her eyes have started to fade, that she’s haunted, but not really haunted, and at the end of it all, he thinks that these are the pieces that he’s starting to want for himself too. “She’s too good for you,” Tsunade says quietly, just for him, even as Sakura comes to stand next to him. “Remember that,” she tells him.
“Remember what?”
Tsunade’s expression completely changes. “Nothing,” she says quickly, and the moment is over. She smiles at her former student. “I’ll see you for dinner, along with your obnoxiously adorable plus one, of course.”
“She’ll be excited to see you. Since your trip got delayed,” Sakura says, amused. She studies the older woman. Something passes between them. Kakashi might catch it. Or he’s imagining it. Or he might care just a little bit. Either way, he finds himself shifting uncomfortably. Looking for an exit strategy.
Then Sakura’s fingers graze the back of his hand. And Kakashi lets her.
He can’t stop change, after all.